OUSD chief: Distinguished School award shows poor, minority students can be successful

OCEANSIDE -- Oceanside Unified School District Superintendent
Ken Noonan, who has made a mantra of his belief that poor and
minority students can be successful, said Thursday that proof of
that conviction can be found at Del Rio Elementary, named a
California Distinguished School this week.

"The problem (with student success) is not the kids, the color
of their skin … or what kind of home they live in," Noonan said.
"Many problems exist at Del Rio. What made the difference is what
happened in the classroom. … That's teachers teaching
superbly."

The campus, in the middle of a rough east Oceanside neighborhood
with a large minority population and a history of gang-related
shootings, was tapped for the honor Tuesday. The California
Distinguished School award is the highest given in the state for a
school's improvement and achievement.

"This is a landmark situation for the district," Noonan said.
"They made it happen."

The honor is the latest worth celebrating at Del Rio, a school
that once lingered at the bottom of the heap, but in the last few
years has been climbing to the top, officials said.

Based on California Department of Education reports, the
school's overall test scores in 2005 crossed the state's threshold
for a high-performing campus.

Students there also surpassed the federal No Child Left Behind
requirements in 2005, which demand that a gradually increasing
percentage of students perform at or above grade level in math and
English tests every year.

The school is a small campus made up of deteriorating
relocatable buildings and trailers.

Within the aging wire fences and paint-chipped walls of Del Rio,
roughly 85 percent of the students are minorities. Nearly half are
enrolled in programs for those whose first language is not English,
and as many as 70 percent come from families that fall within the
federal poverty limits.

Success in a school with such characteristics is not common:
Schools statewide with similar settings and demographics struggle
to get 25 percent of their students to work at grade level, and
face federal sanctions if they don't.

But based on Del Rio's test scores in 2005, 75 percent of the
school's students are working at grade level or above in math. In
reading and language arts, more than 40 percent are showing the
same progress.

The percentages are far above -- approximately two to three
times higher -- what the federal government's No Child Left Behind
Act of 2001 demanded of schools this year, when it dictated that
approximately 25 percent of students perform at grade level or
above.

A state report released in August gave Del Rio an Academic
Performance Index of 801. That's the state's report card based on
standardized tests given in the spring. The 800 mark, on a scale of
200 to 1,000, is where the state expects high-performing schools to
rank.

Most of the other schools locally and statewide that have
exceeded 800 have far fewer minority and poor students, based on a
comparison between test scores and demographics at top-notch
schools. In fact, schools with similar demographics struggle to
reach 700.

Principal Phyllis Morgan said the award has helped boost the
confidence of students who will begin taking standardized tests
next week.

"At the morning assembly (Wednesday), we told the kids, 'You are
the smartest kids in the state of California.' "

Scores from next week's tests will help the state calculate the
school's new index score.

'We're hoping for sustainability," Morgan said. "That's our
hope, that we can maintain."